Chapter 41 #2
That realization hit me like a ton of bricks as I was doing my final duty of the day—mopping the entire café.
I had spent the last few weeks wondering why I had to be in Possibly.
Why my mom hadn’t come to rescue me. In my heart of hearts, I’d truly felt as though Possibly was the worst place in the world to find myself.
But as I mopped the floor, I realized that I didn’t hate Possibly and it wasn’t the worst place in the world.
It was different than everything else I’d ever known.
That had made me want to reject it, to declare it mundane and backwoods.
However, it was the easiest life I’d ever known, living in Possibly.
There was no hustle and bustle, no running like hell from the cops.
No wondering where my next meal would come from and if it would have enough nutritional value to keep me from feeling like crap for days.
It wasn’t exciting, but it wasn’t stressful.
Maybe I missed the excitement of the road—something Possibly could never match—but I didn’t miss everything else.
Once I got used to the easy going way of living of Possibly, and the way the people of Possibly lived simply and peacefully, I found that I didn’t miss the excitement either.
What’s the point of excitement if it comes with conditions and consequences?
Near the end of my shift, after I’d put away my cleaning supplies and cleaned up in the backroom, I walked back out into the café to an empty dining area. At the counter, Starbuck was passing a freshly made frappe to the only customer in the place.
Auggie.
I froze as he thanked Starbuck and turned away from the counter, clutching his drink. When our eyes met, he didn’t quite smile, but he didn’t scowl at me, either. I wasn’t sure if I should say anything to him, but I didn’t have to wonder for long.
“Hey,” he said, shuffling cautiously away from the counter towards me.
“Hey back,” I said, hoping it wasn’t the wrong thing to say.
Auggie’s eyes flitted around for a moment as he chewed at his lip, obviously trying to figure out what to say to me. I was glad that he was doing the thinking because my mind was drawing a blank. I desperately wanted to say something to him, but I didn’t know what to say.
Actually, that wasn’t entirely true. I knew exactly what to say to Auggie, but I didn’t know if I had the courage to say it.
I’m a jerk and I was wrong.
Do you want to get coffee sometime?
After what had happened between Lilly and Amos, did everything that Auggie and I had said to each other really matter?
Did we really want to have a years-long storm brewing between us before one of us blew up in front of the whole town?
Why not just skip to the handshake and forgiveness part of it all?
“Yesterday was crazy, huh?” he asked, looking over at me to smile, finally. “In a good way, I mean. Kind of. At least last night was. That was fun.”
I nodded. “I’ve never danced before. In public, I mean. With other people.”
He braved a smile.
So, I decided to be brave, too. At least a little bit. I leaned in conspiratorially as I spoke.
“Who do you think strung up all the lights and played the song?” I asked.
Auggie chuckled.
“Right?” he asked and took a sip of his frappe. “Another Possibly mystery to solve.”
I laughed. “Yeah. That seems to be a thing here. You guys—we—like our mysteries.”
Auggie cocked his head to the side, a queer smile playing along his lips.
“We?”
I shrugged. “We.”
His smile turned into a grin.
“Speaking of which,” I leaned in to whisper, “I solved the Shirlene mystery.”
“Oh?”
“I think the letters are going to stop. I could tell you all about it sometime,” I said, averting my eyes from his. “If you want?”
Auggie took a while to think about what I’d offered, and I was beginning to worry that he might tell me to go jump off a pier. Or a certain bridge. Finally, he spoke.
“It’s a full moon tomorrow night,” he said. “I was going to give the silo one more chance. It won’t be great for star watching, but the moon should be amazing. And maybe the stars will look good, too. Do you…do you want to try again?”
I grinned down at the floor before raising my head to look at him.
“I’d love to try again,” I said.
“Eleven-thirty?” he asked. “Just like always? Or the once?”
I laughed. “I’ll be there.”
Auggie and I left Starbuck’s together, but went in separate directions after exiting the shop. He headed off to his barn, and I headed to Jack’s place. Home. My first real home in so long that I couldn’t even remember.
Later that night, as had become habit, I stripped down to my boxers and crawled into bed.
I knelt by the dormer window and pushed it open.
The Possibilian breeze whispered into my room, delivering the sounds and smells of town, cool enough to summon gooseflesh to my chest and arms, as grasshoppers chirped in the distance and fireflies danced along the bank of Susurrus Creek.
It had only been dark for an hour, but I could hear indecipherable music on the wind, coming from the direction of Auggie’s barn. Where lights were already coming from the skylight.
I couldn’t wait to try again.
If life was art, and art wasn’t easy, sometimes you just had to keep trying.
Because art doesn’t come naturally to all of us, after all.
As I drifted off to sleep, it felt as if I was drifting away into a black void.
Then the light came, burning away the void, and a scene unfolded of an evergreen valley where cool breezes whispered through tree leaves and made the grass perpetually dance.
Dew drops shone like gemstones on blades of grass and flower petals and tree leaves.
Where chrysalides, stuck to hearty plant stems split open, saturating the earth with their nutrients and butterflies emerged, shaking off their wings, heavy with moisture.
The butterflies, unsure of what the purpose of their transformation was, flapped their wings lazily, drying them as the sun warmed and woke them from their weeks-long slumber.
With nothing else to do, they took flight.
Because that’s what butterflies do. Not because there was nothing else to do, but because they could.
It didn’t have to make sense, but flight was how they announced their new way of being.
It was how they announced that, though changed, they were still there.
Just different.
Somewhere, in my dream, I heard a door open and close.